Earth Song: Twilight Serenade

by Mark Wandrey

  Minu ran the diagnostics on her suit with the control pad on her right forearm, and once it confirmed everything was in the green (blue on Lost tech), she left the pilot cabin for the rear and decompressed the bay. Space loomed with nothing to hold her but the six alien bots.

  Taking a page from her daughter, Minu leaned out and pointed with her hands. The bots responded by using their own field generators and she was propelled out into space. “You sure this is safe?” she asked her daughter.

  “Completely.”

  “What if they break down?”

  “While unlikely even one would fail,” Lilith said from far away, “it would only take one remaining functional to get you back to the shuttle.”

  Feeling more confident, she spent a few minutes learning how to maneuver by gesturing. The bots were surprisingly intuitive and in only minutes she was flying back and forth with ease. Her confidence boosted, she flew toward the moon of debris.

  Her HUD took her to the marked location of the debris where the airlock was located. The computer said it was an anterior dorsal section of a Fiisk heavy cruiser. Up close now the magnitude of the debris was incredible. The entire moon was made out of the remains of dozens of ships all gathered here by unknown forces.

  Examining the lock up close and personal, she confirmed there was no power. So she used the little bots again. Tapping the one on her right arm with her left finger, she pointed at the lock and effected a line along the dualloy door. A moment later the same bot assaulted the doorway, following her indicated point exactly, easily slicing through the ultra-strong hybrid metal.

  Once the beam cut off, she reached out and took ahold of the lock’s central grip and pulled. The cut section released with no resistance. Minu gave it a little delta V and it began to drift away, leaving the interior of the lock revealed.

  Lilith had warned her against using too much power from the bots doing just what she’d done to the lock, so she was relieved to find the interior door standing open. Flicking on her suit’s lights, she flew inside.

  Minu flew around the interior hallways for a few minutes, examining equipment spaces and empty chambers with unknown uses. She was about to give up, it was pretty obvious that the ship had been thoroughly salvaged, when she came to a closed door. The bulkhead was partly buckled, probably from whatever force had destroyed the ship. However it had happened, sufficient force had been generated to buckle the bulkhead right down the middle of this doorway.

  Since she was about done exploring, Minu figured expending some more power was not going to put her in danger. She activated the bots again and affected a circle around the perimeter of the door, and almost died.

  Minu never gave any thought to how much loading the door might be under from the buckling wall until her cutter beam released that loading and the door shot out at her.

  “Shit!” she yelped, instinctively raising her right arm to shield her face. The door slammed into her and pounded her against the bulkhead with enough force to rattle her teeth and make her see stars.

  “Are you okay, mother?” Lilith’s worried voice came over the link. Minu shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “Mom? I’m moving the ship to you.”

  “No,” she finally managed. “I’m okay, just made a stupid move with a piece of debris.”

  “Is your suit compromised?”

  Minu gave her head another shake and raised her left arm, examining the control interface. Suit integrity was intact. A small cloud of blue shards was floating around her now. The bot which had rode that arm had exploded from the impact, shielding her suit. “Suit’s fine, but one of your bots is toast.”

  “Please return to the shuttle.”

  “I will, right after I check out the room. Might as well after it tried to kill me.” Lilith didn’t say anything else, so she maneuvered into the room and allowed her lights to show her the inside. “It’s a storage bay,” she explained, “there are racks of these octagonal crates, all with mounting points and there are tracks all throughout the space.”

  “It’s not a storage bay,” Lilith told her, “it’s a magazine.”

  “Missiles?”

  “Yes, send me an image?”

  “Transmitting.”

  Lilith reviewed the images and replied. “Yes, that is a missile magazine from a Fiisk with tactical missiles.”

  “Not more of the shipkillers?”

  “No, these are different.”

  “So it was worth the trip?”

  “Absolutely. I’m sending a salvage team of Beezer, they’ll be there in half an hour.” Minu smiled and nodded, then went out to finish poking around until the shaggy beasts showed up.

  Chapter 12

  February 3rd, 535 AE

  Ghost fleet, Deep Space, Galactic Frontier

  There turned out to be three magazines that were accessible from outside the debris cluster without extensive cutting. Lilith would not approve of any heavy cutting or moving of debris for two reasons. She didn’t want to alert any ships that might still be close enough to detect the work, and there was a very real risk of setting off unexploded ordinance.

  “This debris pile could well be full of all kinds of consumables,” Minu pointed out as the bots and Beezer went to work at the located magazines.

  “I believe the tactical risks are too great.”

  Minu was frustrated but she had no choice but to acquiesce to Lilith’s judgment on the matter. The taste of what other treasures might be contained in the remains of those warships made the loss that much more profound.

  “Do we have a solid inventory of what we’ve salvaged from that junk pile?”

  Lilith didn’t look up from where she was manipulating multiple screens and scripts. “Not yet. The Beezer salvage crew are finishing securing the last of them. Some are not missile types I’m familiar with.”

  “That’s a surprise,” Minu admitted, “I figured with the Kaatan being warships you’d know about every type of missile.”

  “The Kaatan is specialized in its tactical use, only carrying weapons systems optimized for its use. The much larger Fiisk carried nearly every type of missile the People employed. Once they’re aboard, I will consult with the Combat Intelligence on the Fiisk and evaluate our salvage.”

  “Does that mean some of it might be useless for you?”

  “Basic launch capabilities on all warships are standardized per species, so I can use anything we find, though again its utility could be in question. If we wish to utilize the Fiisk, we’ll need substantial consumables stores to field it as well.”

  Minu nodded. She did have plans for the Fiisk, both short term and long term. Plans that could only be enhanced if they could salvage the other locations the Fiisk CIC knew about. She only hoped there was enough time left for the long term.

  They’d gotten together to discuss the ending of the operations at the ghost fleet. On the huge wall displays their squadron of ships were arrayed around the now stabilized and fully powered Fiisk. When Minu returned with the Eseel gunboat Lilith sent all three out to orbit more than a million kilometers away, thus giving her a wider sensor sweep and a few more light seconds warning if another alien ship approached. Ibeen Alpha, Beta, and Gamma were all standing by with skeleton crews finishing the last of the work needed to put the ships into service.

  Lilith broached a subject she’d been considering. “I believe we should crew and launch the three completed Ibeen.”

  “Isn’t there risk in that move?”

  “Yes, there is some risk, but I believe it is bigger in leaving as a large convoy. We lack the ability to protect them in mass, and the gravity signature of five Ibeen, the hybrid Fiisk, and my Kaatan will be formidable. Recall the results when I tried to protect only one Ibeen in the past.”

  “The control systems we’ve fabricated are much more advanced over those improvised ones.”

  “I agree,” Lilith said, “and the additional firepower of the Fiisk will be a great addition, once we’ve gotten it back to Bel
latrix and spent the time to properly integrate the Kaatan combat intelligence systems into it.”

  “You’ve decided it can handle it?”

  “I think I’ve decided your long term idea coincides well with integrating the CI. Between the two, we’d have an effective Fiisk team.”

  Minu knew what long term idea her daughter was talking about, and her furthering that idea made quite a bit of sense. If it worked as planned the results would be perfect for this project. As to the ships…

  “Okay, I agree. Let’s send out Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.”

  The three Ibeen powered up and left over the following eight hours. There was a brief ceremony on the bridge of Ibeen Alpha where Minu, as leader of Humanity, officially presented the ships to the Beezer in exchange for their agreement. First Alpha left, then Beta four hours later, and finally Gamma. Twenty Beezer remained behind to finish the last of the work on the Fiisk and to load the salvage.

  “As much as we can cram into the holds of Epsilon and the Fiisk,” Minu instructed them. Anything useful. Lilith has provided technical details of what to look for in order of priority.”

  Something in her knew that their time was running out. She knew they would have to leave untold amounts of invaluable treasures here for that ship or another to return eventually. And besides that basic fact was the fear that much of it was ordinance that would later be used against her. And that, more than anything, did not sit well with the military leader of the human race.

  As evening of that long day approached, one of the Eseel picked up a faint but definite tachyon signature. Then a second, and a third, and a fourth. They were gathering less than a light year away.

  “Get the other two Ibeen out of here,” Minu immediately instructed.

  “They’ll detect them departing,” Lilith said.

  “Not if they see us instead.” Minu detailed her plan and Lilith admitted it was a good one. Once the young girl sent the Beezer scrambling to depart, Minu verified that the work crews had carried out her personal instructions.

  “Just as you ordered,” the crew chief huffed over his suit’s transmitter. “All set and ready.”

  “Excellent, get to your ship as fast as possible and get your cargo to your guild colony world of Timbuktu. We’ll see you at the rendezvous as planned.”

  “They are moving in,” Lilith warned her over their communicator within minutes of the final Beezer crew reaching their ship.

  “Begin coordinated move,” Minu ordered, and Lilith went into motion.

  “Come about on me,” she told the Combat Intelligence on the Fiisk.

  The T’Chillen squadron moved in force toward the anomaly that had first been spotted by a passing reconnaissance frigate several days ago. That ship had been unable to determine the exact nature of the reading. The captain decided the size of the target was beyond his tactical ability to handle, and it seemed to match the energy signature that all T’Chillen warships were instructed to watch for.

  The squadron commander leading from the CIC of a cruiser so new it was on its first mission evaluated the scattered readings his sensor technician sent to him. The information was less than useless. There could be one ship in the long dead star system, or there could be a hundred. The commander of the reconnaissance frigate had been right to escalate this reading. The fleet commander may have been hasty to take his head.

  “Orders, squadron commander?” one of the three destroyer captains asked. The squadron commander hissed and spat poison on the pristine painted floor of the bridge. He was too newly promoted for the bridge crew to have the proper amount of respect and fear that normally went with such a position. Had they become used to the new squadron commander, there would have been fearful silence. Instead they watched with open curiosity, and that pushed him to act rashly.

  “Assume combat formation,” he ordered, “destroyer B-44 on point, we enter the system at best speed.”

  In a less than perfect formation the five ships raced through the ancient sphere of charged particles that remained after the start had gone nova. An eighth of a light year deep, it took them almost an hour to push through, all the time nearly blind to what they would find.

  The squadron lead destroyer cleared the nova remnant five seconds before the other ships, and was destroyed almost immediately.

  “Enemy ships dead ahead!” the cruisers tactical officer hissed in alarm.

  “Split formation, shields aligned to threat,” the commander ordered even as those actions were already underway. The rapidly growing T’Chillen fleet was moving experienced ship personnel around to new ships as they came on line, seeding each with a number of crew who were well versed in that class of vessel operation. There were fewer ships with full veteran crews, but also newer ships at least contained section leaders who knew what they were doing. Those experienced crew took charge immediately when the lead destroyer was obliterated, doing just what the commander ordered before it hissed from his mouth.

  “Threat assessment!” the squadron commander snapped as the four surviving ships of his squadron split around the perceived threat. At the instant the emerged from the confusing interference, sensors resolved the outline of a single Kaatan ship of the line and a pair if Eseel gunboats. This was exactly the type of threat this sort of squadron was established to combat. “Full forward energy batteries, engage, engage!” he hissed in triumph.

  The Kaatan plowed into the hail of energy beams as the T’Chillen destroyers unleashed a wave of shipkiller missiles. They were all swatted aside by a dizzying flash of pinpoint laser point defense fire. The Kaatan’s mobile shields spun in almost invisible speed to catch the incoming energy beams, glowing white after each hit and darting away to allow the impact to dissipate while another moved in to take its place. The complex and fast-moveable shield system was something the T’Chillen ships could not hope to come close to duplicating.

  The T’Chillen destroyers on three sides, rolled as they fired, allowing their less mobile shields to shed fire as the Kaatan unleashed its forward beam weapons and replied with pinpoint flights of its own shipkillers. The destroyers used their own point defense to good effect.

  Coming up the middle, the T’Chillen cruiser went straight at the Kaatan, its shields all oriented forward and everything it had blasting at the lone enemy ship. The Kaatan was just beginning to show shield weakness when a massive energy beam took one of the destroyers from its unshielded side amidships. Secondary explosions rent the ship apart in a series of blinding explosions.

  “What happened?” the squadron commander demanded.

  “A new ship was shielded in the vast amounts of debris,” a technician called as a second destroyer was hit, that ship just managing to bring shields to bear. “It’s a battlecruiser, Fiisk class!”

  “That is not possible!” the commander hissed in outrage.

  “Incoming missiles!”

  The Fiisk cast loose the dozens of pieces of debris it had held in place with forcefield generators as it released wave after wave of missiles. Point defense batteries on the T’Chillen cruiser spun to align with the missiles just as the incoming weapons split, and split again, each piece then accelerating in an instant to almost a quarter the speed of light.

  “What—” was all the squadron commander managed before the missiles hit.

  Point defense hit dozens of them and still more than a dozen of the newly found Sub-C Kinetic missiles splashed across the already lightly shielded flank of the cruiser. Extra shields were brought around to help hold the damage, too late.

  The shields gone, the second wave of missiles accelerated at tens of thousands of gravities, reaching almost half the speed of light before impact. The actual projectiles only weighed 100kg each. The kinetic impact was more than ten kilotons of force for each. Armor plating and structure, only finished weeks ago, was torn apart as compartments exploded, explosively venting atmosphere and hundreds of wildly spinning snakes.

  The Kaatan opened up with pinpoint accuracy from the opposite
side against now-weakened shields, anti-particle accelerator beams, A-paws, easily overwhelming the defenses and ripping into the hull. Inside the much weaker interior structure entire sections were torn apart and one missile magazine unleashed its destruction on its own ship. The cruiser’s hull contained the missiles explosion, channeling it inward. In the CIC, the newly minted squadron commander never knew what hit him as the command center was vaporized less than a second after the missile magazine exploded. Secondary explosions rippled through her hull. The cruiser swelled and ruptured like a balloon.

  The two surviving destroyers both tried to turn on the heavy cruiser, sensing that its shielding was not working ideally, only to themselves be set upon by the Kaatan. Caught between the massive firepower of the Fiisk, and the slashing attacks of the Kaatan, they were quite literally sliced to pieces while their commanders screamed for help that would never arrive in time.

  Unnoticed, the small group of Ibeen slipped away on the far side of the solar system, accelerating quietly past the speed of light and away.

  In the CIC of the Kaatan Minu floated next to her daughter. The two women looked at each other and both nodded. The fire that burned in Minu’s eyes was one of both victory and anticipation. Her daughter had defeated more than a few T’Chillen, Mok-Tok and Tanam ships. Those fights were often desperate things with their outcomes in question to the end. Except for that first fight against the T’Chillen in the Rasa’s old homeworld, none had been so one sided as this one.

  Lilith reset the shield controls to normal. There had never been any danger of a breach. Her ship could have stood that level of onslaught almost indefinitely without being in danger. The ruse worked perfectly.

  “Things are going to start to change now,” Minu said, her mind awhirl with plans now begun to be realized, “and for the likes of them,” she indicated the field of debris that had only recently been five T’Chillen warships, “not for the better.”

  “I look forward to it,” Lilith told her mother.